Scrap middle-class bursaries, universities told

Universities have been told to scrap bursaries to middle class students to support only the poorest undergraduates.

By Julie Henry, Education Correspondent

9:00PM GMT 20 Feb 2010

In an era of funding cuts, bursaries for those from "higher income" homes and non-means tested scholarships should be cut to target resources more "efficiently", according to the Office for Fair Access (OFFA), the higher education access regulator.

Only disadvantaged students should benefit from the bursary pot that universities are obliged to provide, the organisation said in its submission to the Government's fees review.

The call puts in jeopardy the financial support paid by institutions to thousands of students from middle class homes.

While most universities offer generous support to those from households where the income is less than £25,000 – the level at which they qualify for a full Government grant – a number offer partial bursaries to students from families earning more than double that.

Essex University provides a cash maintenance bursary on a sliding scale for those whose families earn between £32,690 and £60,005.

Cambridge gives financial support on a sliding scale to students from "lower-middle income family backgrounds" of up to £50,000.

Students at Bristol are entitled to £310 a year if they come from households earning between £40,001 and £50,020, which rises to £1,075 a year for applicants from the city.

At Oxford, students receive sliding-scale bursaries if household income is £49,999 or under, while at Brighton University, the cut off is £40,300.

Bursaries awarded to students from modest means were intended to give help to those who get little or no Government grant, because they are not poor enough, but whose parents are not wealthy enough to contribute towards the burden of £3,225 a year tuition fees and living costs.

But in its first submission to the Lord Browne inquiry into fees and university funding, OFFA said that faced with financial constraints, institutions should "rebalance their funds", directing more money to poor students or to schemes to encourage deprived pupils to go to university.

"Some institutions currently offer bursaries to students on higher incomes, or offer bursaries or scholarships that are not means-tested," it said.

"Efficiencies may be found by targeting bursaries better at the most disadvantaged students.

"We are happy to consider revisions that allow institutions to rebalance their funds so that money is spent where it can have the greatest impact.

For example, some institutions may decide that some of the money they spend on bursaries – particularly targeted at students with higher incomes – might be more usefully spent on creating stronger links with schools in disadvantaged areas, or other additional outreach."

Essex University defended its bursary scheme. It said it recently raised the threshold for bursaries from £38,000 to £60,000 to try to support students who get little help from the state.

"We were becoming aware of a pocket of students that does not get very much help at all and we specifically raised it to the higher level to make sure that these students were not missing out," said a spokesman.

"We were also worried about the uptake of bursaries and thought this could be addressed by increasing the proportion of those that are eligible."

A vice-chancellor from one of the Russell Group universities said: "Targeting support where it is most needed is important but we don't want children from middle-income families to be wary of applying to higher education."

University scholarship schemes, which reward merit, could also now be reined in.

Manchester University, for instance, pays the cost of tuition fees for chemistry students with three A grades at A-level, while Sheffield University gives engineering students £260 for each A grade they achieved at A-level.

Hull offers engineering and technology scholarships of £1,500 for students with three B grades or better and Leeds has ten enterprise scholarships this year worth up to £4,000 each.

The regulator, created in 2004 to ensure that universities provide bursaries and attract under-represented groups, also criticised the "slow progress" made on widening access at elite universities.

It said in its submission that the Russell Group of the 20 most selective institutions had generally not improved their intake of students from poorer backgrounds.

Sir Martin Harris, the director of OFFA, will report to ministers next month on what leading universities should do to improve access.

Bahram Bekhradnia, the director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: "Bursaries are being used to some extent as an instrument to attract the most able to institutions, not to increase and support the numbers of poorer students who go there.